Teaching the Prosody of Emotive Communication in a Second Language

The expression and the perception of emotional states in a foreign language represent a difficult task for the learners. One of the reasons is the fact that, more than other aspects related to speech, the expression of emotional states in second language requires full control of the prosodic resources that contribute to their realization. The aim of this chapter is to give an overview of the main tenets of the interface between prosody and pragmatic competence in L2 and in particular the expression and perception of emotions. The chapter will also outline some of the outcomes of the research in the field, focusing on experimental studies that have been conducted with learners of Italian as L2. The second part of the chapter will be devoted on the instructional practice aimed at developing the awareness of pragmatic-prosodic aspects of emotive communication in speech. Teaching practices such as a training focused on the expression of emotions (anger, joy, sadness, disgust, fear, and surprise) and video dubbing projects have proven to be useful tools to improve the performance of learners both in production and in perception of prosodic patterns of emotional communication.